I took a look at my past posts and I more or less ran the gauntlet -- progressivism, libertarianism, liberalism, conservatism, socialism, you name it, I probably wrote a blog post that would make you think there's actually an ideological school that I follow.
I've come to realize that there's no ideology that's absolutely right; there's no ideology that everybody should adhere to; and there's no ideology that's immune from endless ridicule. The truth is humanity from all corners engage in a chess game where the moves made only have personal psychological attachment and thus individual value. Personally, I'm more fascinated in the strategy where people make their decisions -- basically, I'm looking at people from a perspective that is loosely rooted in game theory.
I could sit here and preach free market fundamentalism all day long, but the vaunted free market is populated by people like myself, who have little difference from myself, and not worth it's purported pedestal. Not every thing can be regressed to an average submission of market forces (or in other words, not everything is going to submit to "market forces and behaviors"). Conversely, I can equally advocate for endless government interventionist economic policy and also realize that anybody can turn a disadvantage into an advantage if they seize the opportunity to do so (see, "Fractional Reserve Banking"). As long as there are new discoveries being made, there will be new avenues found for people to capitalize on opportunities that present itself at the behest or the chagrin of others. It is absolutely foolish to believe that governments can act as a "cure-all".
I could buy into conspiracy theories -- the truthers, the birthers, the New World Order, the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group -- yet, I see that they're game theory exercises. The "plausible explanations" that come from the target of suspicion are exercises as well, just with the intent of a different outcome (comfort and control versus revelation and revolution). In truth, what I see, is two sides firing at each other in a blindfolded attempt to make a zero-sum game out of a game that is far from being zero-sum -- not even close, in my opinion. Remember: questions lead to discoveries; discoveries lead to challenges; and challenges lead to questions and whole cycle repeats itself.
I can sit here and advocate for liberty, but what liberty? The positive liberty that aims to where everybody has a fair shot in a given society or the negative liberty that advocates for freedom from coercion? Either way, strict advocacy for either will be undermined by the fact that human wants and needs are complicated, in no way, shape, or form can be reconciled to a basic set of given principles, and the unavoidable fact that advocacy of either requires a massive gamble on altruism that has yet to truly manifest itself into a bet that is safe enough to ensure that a given interpretation of liberty is the solution to the social Rubik's cube. Altruism is not an end in itself (and I hate that I use that term so much); effectiveness is key.
What about pushing for anarchy? Totalitarianism? Communism? Theocracy? Social forms of conduct (rather than me calling them political ideologies) that mainly try to paint itself as the zenith, but only illustrate themselves as an end in itself, will indeed find it's end in itself (there I go again using that phrase). It's blatant redundancy to make a point: if a political system creates dead ends then it will forced to change or ultimately destroy itself. India and China learned this as both countries embraced private enterprise in the 1980s and 1990s. The Civil War and the Great Depression arguably ended any chance of the United States returning back to a small national government when population growth, new social awareness, and the Industrial Revolution spurred convoluted issues that crumbled the small government model. It's why the USSR ended up falling on its face as it's communist model was unable to properly address new challenges and issues that arose from the impending post-industrial revolution.
What about a society built around time-honored, "traditional" values? Sounds cute until individual desire and thus hypocrisy comes into play. What about a society that is build solely on altruism? I think I mentioned this before as an unwise bet to make, but I think it's cute too until individual desire and hypocrisy comes into play. Romantic political grandstanding is cute too, until the realization that politicians win elections (as a side note, that's probably why Rand Paul will ultimately have a much more successful, effective, and memorable career than his daddy). We can dream of an ideology and philosophy becoming a global world view, but there has to be effectiveness (there's that word again) on implementation and maintenance, which includes the ability to anticipate and solve problems in damn near perfect omnipotence.
In the end though, I cannot help but to be fascinated. The hedges. The bets. The push and pull and manipulation and benevolence and malevolence and everything in between. In truth, at least for myself, I'm more interested in developing a strategy that allows me to mitigate through life rather than taking sides. However, I'll always err for human rights.
Well then, I guess even I had to take a side somewhere.
And if you have an open mind, you'd get my riddle with that.
